Private Medical Insurance and Saving: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

Alessandra Guariglia and Mariacristina Rossi

CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS

Abstract: This paper uses the British Household Panel Survey for the years 1996 to 2000 to investigate whether individuals in the UK save for precautionary motives against uncertain medical costs. In particular, we test the hypothesis that those individuals who are not covered by private medical insurance, and who are therefore more exposed to facing unexpected health care expenditures or loss of income while waiting for treatment, tend to save more than those who are covered. According to our findings, which are based on a wide range of econometric specifications, there is a positive association between insurance coverage and saving, suggesting that private medical insurance does not crowd out private saving. This relationship is however weaker in areas where people feel the quality of medical facilities to be poor and in rural areas.

Keywords: precautionary saving; private medical insurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D91 E21 H51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36
Date: 2003-11-20
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ceistorvergata.it/RePEc/rpaper/No-39-Guariglia,Rossi.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Private medical insurance and saving: evidence from the British Household Panel Survey (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:39

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma
https://ceistorvergata.it

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Barbara Piazzi ().